Kiki Smith
Kiki Smith (American, b. 1954). My Blue Lake, edition 26/41, 1995. Photogravure, lithograph. 43 1/2 x 54 3/4. Published by Universal Limited Art Editions (ULAE), West Islip, NY. Collection of Jordan D. Schnitzer
To create My Blue Lake, Kiki Smith borrowed a periphery camera from the British Museum, that generates a 360° view of a subject in one image. The technology was invented for geological surveys and is akin to flattening the globe into a twodimensional map. Smith’s resulting photograph is of her own body, made into a landscape. Smith hand colored the image—reinscribing topographical detail onto an overflow of human flesh. Maps have historically been a globally produced tool for the exploration and naming of geographical sites, while also enabling colonization, domination, and the control of human bodies and natural resources; here the map transforms into an evocation of human interiority. For Smith, our body is our connection to the Earth; it represents our shared biology as humans and our collective experience with the environment. Smith comments, “You’re something constantly changing, and that fluidity is not to be lost.”
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